Confidence comes from being yourself and sticking to your values. Not so much from knowing what you’re doing, more from knowing who you are and being happy with that. Easy to say, but not always so easy to live up to.
When you can confidently be true to yourself and whatever you believe in, living in integrity is its own reward. Confidence frees up a lot of energy and head space to achieve what you want to in life. Much of the daily pressure we put ourselves under comes from NOT living according to our nature, which means we’re trying to please others – our bosses, colleagues, partners, family and friends. We contort ourselves in to the person we THINK they want us to be. But how do we really know? It’s just our projection. Most of time we get it wrong and when people inevitably sense the falseness in our behaviour they dislike it or feel uncomfortable around it. Instead we could just ease up and be our actual selves. It would be simpler and we’d probably be more popular. Most of us are petty habitual liars, because it’s easier to hide who we are than to be our full vulnerable selves. What if people don’t like us? What if we offend people? What if we are judged? What if we lose our job?
Life with no confidence
I used to live my life without confidence, people-pleasing and hiding much of who I was, believing it was the price of being part of the herd. I reckoned I was pretty different to others – the special snowflake – but it turns out I was just neurotic and anxious, unprepared to accept myself. My standards were impossibly high. A big part of my anxiety revolved around work – judging myself, my performance, my communication, my style – finding that I didn’t fit my own ideal of the entrepreneurial I.T. elite. I was nervous and insecure, even when performing at my best. But one day the pressure got too much. I couldn’t hack trying to be something I wasn’t any more. I broke down in the face of my perceived inability to blend in and deliver quality work. I quit. I picked up my spare suit, left the building and didn’t go back.The upside of breaking down
Good for me, because this forced a long overdue career change. I had previously studied energetic healing and now I began coaching myself using methods learned online. Quickly discovering that I had to face my own insecurities, negative thoughts and emotions if I wanted to change, I began the painstaking process of throwing out old beliefs and re-drawing a map of myself that was kinder, more congruent and far more light-hearted. It’s a journey I continue every day and each day it becomes more enjoyable. I learned to be my authentic self, not abandoning or outlawing any part of myself. As I became comfortable in my own skin and my life became so much simpler, I grew to love my new life so much that I set about qualifying as a burnout coach and began working with others like me – such rewarding work to see how fast people grow away from the prevailing misery of their lives.The better life you want is already right here
I really would love to share with you how I succeeded in life, because if you are stressed and time poor, anxious and driving yourself in to the ground, there is a BETTER WAY TO LIVE and it’s within easy reach of you where you are right now. But let’s jump back for a moment to the job I left in a fit. Much, much later, after I’d changed career and needed to apologise in person, I had coffee with my erstwhile boss and discovered that he hadn’t wanted me to quit. That I had been performing perfectly well, and had in fact been pivotal to business success. He told me that he really struggled to keep going without me and the business almost went under. I reflected on all the avoidable suffering in that situation, all created by my mind. These days it just wouldn’t happen.This is your opportunity to grow
My friend, we tell ourselves a lot of untruths in this life, to avoid facing ourselves and our reality. There’s a better way. If it’s time for you to explore this, please sign up for a free mini session to have a chat with me and I will show how I can help you with your current biggest stress.As a certified coach, I understand the range of skills that are critical for success. I chose Dex to coach me because he combines a powerful coaching model with his innate genius and ‘sense’ for the specific needs of his client. Dex helped me make significant breakthroughs across a variety of issues I‘d been struggling with for some time. He’s fun and engaging, but knows how to cut thru the noise and get the root cause of an issue. And then he knows exactly how to help rebuild for better results, from the ground up. Scott
